Harvard Forest

During J-term, I took part in a mini-course at Harvard Forest. It was sort of an interdisciplinary art and science program, so we learned about forest ecology and processed core samples one day and had a writing workshop the next. I put my writing below the jump. Here is one of the drawings I did on our visual art day where we used pencil and pastel on brown paper. This exercise was led by artist in residence Debby Kaspari.

Cynomys

I have been making some sketches with my water pen recently, sketching from my new "Animal Skulls: A Guide to North American Species" book. This one is a species of squirrel.

Hitchens

I've been putting off posting this project for months now. Maybe I just hoped that it wouldn't matter how long I delayed in posting. Either way, I'm never comfortable with my depictions of humans and I'm not at all happy with this one. But why not just post it now...

In my 3D illustration class we had to create a bust of a person "in the news"... sort of a 3D editorial cartoon. So of course I chose Hitchens. His cancer diagnosis was relatively new, and I had just completed his book on Thomas Paine. He had recently completed an interview discussing his cancer, and his hollow, haunted look wouldn't leave my mind.

But he just looks so sick here. I just hoped he would get better and write more books and articles, and host more debates, and... well, just be Hitchens for another 10 years. I hoped I could file this project away during a triumphant rebound and never have to remember just how discolored the flesh is, or how sunken the eyes are, and that glassy look of a man who has not just glimpsed his own mortality, but has realized that the outcome of the fight might be determined within the hour.  But unfortunately my sculpey bust remains relevant, and here it is.

Materials and methods: I used flesh-colored sculpey on a wire and tinfoil armature. Color was added in thin washes of acrylic, and the shirt was hand sewn from scrap fabric.

Harvard Citizen

I realized that I did not get a chance to post on the editorial work I've been doing for the Citizen this semester. The Citizen is the free biweekly student newspaper of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Here are two editorial cartoons I did over the course of the semester.

The article for this cartoon was about to the "Too-Big-to-Fail" bank bailouts.

The article for this cartoon involved anti-science republican campaigning strategy.

Necrogoat Progress and Partial Form Mod Tutorial Part 1

Sorry that you'll have to suffer with cell phone pics for a while, still waiting on a camera. However, the steps I have taken in modifying a Goat form may help you in future projects with models or costuming if you have to modify the size of an already intact structure.


So recently Shelby at Promise Land Tannery had a tanned cape sale (Her dA. Her etsy. Her site.) Since her products are top notch, I always watch for these sales, and sometimes find myself starting an unexpected project.

This time, she had a small tanned goat cape... in black. Normally I'm not a huge fan of hoofed animals, or gameheads, but a black goat? How metal...

November Projects

I have been quite busy this fall, but still working on a lot of projects. I feel as though most of my interest has been in 3d work recently.


Recently I bought a Carving and Engraving bit kit for my Dremel and have been working on bone carvings. This one is on a damaged fox jaw, textured with ink washes to make a "New Paleolithic Artifact".

Also I've been working on my basic taxidermy skills. I have a number of ideas but I'm only just now feeling confident enough to begin them. This mink was a great confidence booster. Even though it still has problems, it's close enough to work I've seen elsewhere to encourage me to start my next project. Here he's just sitting on a bookshelf, I'm not totally sure what I want to do with him.

I've been working on another reconstruction Sculpey project, slowly. This one is a vole, and I'm trying to complete the whole skeleton. Here's the current state of that project, It's been very difficult as the sculpey only sticks to the bone in a limited way until its fired, so it took me a long time to get the ribcage section. Since these photos I've finished the vertebral column and rebuilt the viscera inside, as well as worked on getting the neck muscles on.

Skull Reconstruction

Here's a basic skull reconstruction I tried with translucent sculpey built over a real juvenile opossum skull. I tried to create all the muscles from deep to superficial, varying the chroma based on how deep the muscle was. The eye is a black glass bead lightly covered in clay to give it a glazed/dead look.